Last weekend was the BP-MS150.  Day 1 was cancelled as previously reported.  We spent Saturday waiting around for instructions and then carting a team to Schulenburg where they were staying.  After that, Jack and I took a side trip to Waelder to see M&S’s new place out in the middle of nowhere!  lol  Sorry, M… it really is!

Day 2 was interesting, fun, stressful and everything you can imagine!  If you’re reading this and you rode in that ride, I’m going to say the same thing I said inside the van to other cyclists… We try REALLY hard not to hit you guys, but some of you are just nuts and make it really difficult!  I mean, riding on the wrong side of the yellow line?  C’mon people!!  Anyway, I didn’t hit anyone, and I only got yelled at by one cyclist and one DPS officer!  A good day!  lol  The coolest part of the day was after the last rest stop.  At that point, if they’ve made it that far, they’re making it to the finish.  Well we picked up one very emotional lady who was devastated when her bike had a catastrophic failure.  She’d worked so hard, and this was her first 150.  Well Jack and I broke all the rules and a couple of barricades and got her to the finish line where she was able to walk her broken bike across the finish line!  THAT was a very cool feeling!

The Monday after the MS150 was Cyclists in Suits day.  A lobbying day at the Texas Capitol for bike safety laws.  We visited the House and Senate chambers, then went off to visit our lawmakers.  I had appointments scheduled with both our Senator and our Representative.  Our Senator didn’t bother to show up that day.  I still have issues with that, and the fact that he didn’t show up for the vote on the bike legislation, but that’s another issue for another day.  Our Representative however… his office was awesome, and he even came off the House floor to meet us and hear what we had to say.  I was TOTALLY impressed with him!

We came back home, and I was in super solder mode to get a bulk custom order done by Friday for an event.  In the midst of that we had the Rest Stop captain training for the DFW Sam’s Club MS150, which is this next weekend!  It’s already here believe it or not!!

Jack and I both had doctor appointments this week.  He’s lost about 60 pounds as a result of his surgery, which is fantastic!!  I’m so proud of him!  He rode in the Muenster Metric Century bike ride this weekend.  He did the 65k route, which is about 40 miles.  And he’s been riding to work everyday when the weather or wind isn’t nasty.  He’s my studmuffin cyclist! :o)

Friday we had a bit of a scare.  I was letting the dogs out when Angel stumbled, fell and then had a seizure.  We took her to the veterinarian, who did bloodwork and reported that she has autoimmune hemoglobin anemia.  Basically her body is attacking her red blood cells.  We’re starting her on some steroids this week, which will compromise her immune system, which means no more dog park for her.  I’m going to call the vet and see if it’s ok to still take Spaz, or do we have to worry that he’ll bring something home.  He’d be devastated if he couldn’t go to the park anymore!

So it’s been pretty eventful around here.  We’re getting ready for the Sam’s Club MS150 this weekend… Jack is a HAM operator in a SAG van again… I’m helping with rest stops on Day 1, and captaining a rest stop on Day 2 (If you want to come help… I need the help!  Sunday from 8am until around 2:30 pm… you get a shirt, and I’m really desperate!!).  I’ve got to do some charms for that, and we have the last committee meeting this week.  Plus I’ve got a couple of events that I’m working on, so it’s going to be a busy, busy week!!

I’ll post some photos soon!

~Heather

Last weekend was the celebration of my grandfather’s 97th birthday.  I made him a cake that looked like his cowboy hat that he wears to church every Sunday.  I’ll post a photo soon.  Most of our extended family came up for it, so it was a great time of visiting and catching up with everyone!

This past weekend Jack rode in the Tour of Dallas bike ride.  20 miles!  I’m so proud of him!  I’ll post photos later once I get them off the camera.  I was supposed to ride too, but had some mechanical issues.  Instead I was his personal SAG vehicle. :o)

Later that day we took the dogs to the off-leash dog park (which is becoming a daily thing), and since I didn’t ride that morning I decided to walk them to the park!  It’s 2.05 miles… gulp!  Cool thing though, I bought the Nike+ sensor thing that you can put in your tennis shoes and it feeds information about your walk to you iPod.  I don’t have the Nike shoes, but there’s all kinds of ways to use it with other shoes too.  When I plug my iPod into the computer it uploads my walk/run information and keeps track of it online.  Cool, huh?  Even cooler is the little avatar thing that I can put on my blog so that YOU can see how far/fast/etc. I’ve walked/ran and keep me accountable!  Right now she’s on the right sidebar, down towards the bottom.  Check her out, my mini me is pretty rockin’!

This month is going to be super, super ACTIVE!!  Next weekend is Easter and we’ve got family egg hunts, and more.  The next weekend we travel to Houston and Austin to drive a SAG van in the BP MS 150 bike ride.  Monday, April 20th we’ll also be in Austin for the Cyclists in Suits lobbying day at the Capital.  Then there’s a soldering class I’m helping out with.  Then the next weekend (the first weekend in May) is the Sam’s Club MS 150 in Dallas/Fort Worth where Jack is HAM’ing, and I’m helping with the rest stops!  Whew!  So basically, if you don’t see me, don’t get responses to emails, etc. during the month of April, don’t send out a search party just yet!  lol

Today, I’m chilling out at Panera Bread, taking advantage of their free wi-fi while waiting to go to my doctor’s appointment, then heading to the office after that.  Also working on a new website for Jack, but more on that later.

Lots of stuff for “later!”  So I’ll definitely be posting again real soon!
~Heather

Jack is doing really good!  I’m seriously impressed at how good he’s doing.  He’s also been updating his blog (needlegeek.com) a lot, so be sure to check that out!

I’ve been creating a new website and online identity for a top secret event that we’ll be announcing soon.  Trust me, you’ll get all the scoopage here!  And if you’re a crafty person, you’re gonna want the scoopage!

This week is a Bike MS steering committee meeting, I need to get some fondant pieces started for a cowboy hat cake for next weekend, I finished some MS charms tonight (yay!), and there’s some more designing to be done.  There’s always designing to be done! But I love it!

Oh, one more thing, we upgraded the OS on our Mac and with it came the new version of iLife. SO COOL!  It recognizes faces!!  That’s just awesome!  And I can’t wait to see what Apple has in store in tomorrow’s announcement for the iPhone!

~Heather

The surgery went well.  The doc was pleased.  As pleased as he can be… he’s a man of few words and even fewer emotional demonstrations.  The COMPLETE AND TOTAL opposite of Jack plastic surgeon!  But again, I digress.

We got there around 5:15 AM, surgery was supposed to happen at 7:15 AM, however said doc was “late as usual” (nurse’s words, not mine!), we wondered if he forgot to change his clock! lol  Finally went into surgery around 7:45 AM.

Around 10:30 I finally asked the desk clerk for an update, and after a few terse words (which involved me not checking in with her, to which I replied, “I’m sorry, YOU weren’t HERE at 5:00 this morning for me to check in with!”), the doc came out, said everything went well, he’d be in recovery soon, and have a nice day (minus the have a nice day part!)

Jack was in a regular room around 11:30, then down to radiology for a gastro x-ray to make sure his pouch pooched like it was supposed to.  Jack was surprisingly mobile!  Even when they brought him back into the room, he got up off the gurney (slowly of course!), and walked to the bed.  Then for the trip to radiology he got up, walked to the wheelchair, etc. etc.  Doc’s orders, he has to walk as much as possible.  We made three trips down the hall tonight before he went to bed, and we’ll be making more, and longer trips tomorrow (so prepare yourself, Jack!!).

I came home around 10:45 PM, for some sleep and to let the dogs have some normalcy, although they immediately started hunting for Jack.  Sorry guys!  I’ll go back in the morning, and he’ll be released at some point, probably before lunchtime.

I left for a few hours in the middle of the afternoon for my own doctor’s appointment across town.  But I’ll blog about that later…. maybe tomorrow… over at the Build-A-Family blog.

So for now…. hello bed!
~Heather

WHAT?!?!  The coordinator in the surgeon’s office told us that insurance was covering 100%!  The INSURANCE company told us they were covering 100%!  WTH people?!?!  Apparently what they failed to tell us is they cover 100% AFTER our out of pocket…. which is $2,000!

Now, this would be no problem… had they told us a month ago, or even two weeks ago!  But no, they wait and tell us this THREE DAYS BEFORE SURGERY!  YIKES!!

So after much panicking, much distress, a little bit of yelling, and yes, even some tears (on both sides), we figured out how to come up with the money.  Wasn’t fun, wasn’t easy, and we’re still holding onto shoestring hope that it’s all going to work out, but the important thing is… Jack’s still on for surgery on Monday…. hospital be damned!

I miss Baylor!

We had lunch today with my parents… my dad had LapBand surgery about 2 years ago… and they had much advice for us.  I had seen my dad go through it, but there was so much that I didn’t see that I learned about today.  Oh gracious!  But we can do this!  Jack is uber excited and anxious to get it done.  Me, I’m cautiously optomistic.  But that’s us!  lol

This week is crazy!  I’m visiting a bunch of different venues to try to nail down a place for our annual company banquet, we’re delivering lots of coinage to the MS Society from our coin drive at work (it’s MS Awareness Week, by the way!), and Jack has his pre-op appointment at the hospital, plus a bonus appointment with his plastic surgeon to take a last look at his leg before surgery.

Tonight we had dinner at a great mexican place for a friend’s 30th birthday (happy “getting older” Grant!).  We gave him nicely wrapped Geritol and Hemmroid cream!  lol

I took the plunge and signed up for Twitter this week.  It’s interesting.  I just wish I could merge Facebook, Twitter and my blog all in one place!  Then I’d actually be able to keep up! :o)  So if you’re interested, I’m at twitter.com/jackandheather.  I’m still learning though!

Ok, time to head to bed, start another week, another month (can you believe it’s March already?!?!), and get on with it!

~Heather

Jack is completely and totally excited!  Me, I’m a little nervous!  lol

Your prayers are completely and totally requested!  It’s yet a new chapter in our lives!

~Heather

For the past six months, Jack has been seeing the doctor, the nutritionist and even the psychologist, in prepation for having LapBand surgery.  Well, the six months are up, the information has been submitted, insurance has been approved, and now it’s time.

Jack has the final meeting with his surgeon this week, and they’ll schedule his surgery.  We’re hoping they’ll be willing to schedule it for next Monday, March 3rd.  He’s already starting on the preparation diet… soft foods for a week, then liquids only for the 2-3 days before.  We’ll find out for sure on Tuesday when the surgery will be.

It’s strange.  Jack has had so many surgeries.  But they’ve all been necessary, not elective.  And… they’ve all been at the same hospital, we’ve known what to expect.  This time, it’s all unknown… unknown place, unknown people, unknown processes.  So it will be interesting.

Keep us in your prayers.  I’ll be updating here as we know more.

~Heather